


a worn-out sing-along

by twobirdsonesong



Category: CrissColfer - Fandom, Glee RPF
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Drabble, Drunken Confessions, Established Relationship, Late Night Conversations, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 05:52:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6183034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twobirdsonesong/pseuds/twobirdsonesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <a href="http://eloqu-ent.tumblr.com/post/109004813048">Based on this post.</a>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	a worn-out sing-along

Chris keeps his phone on the nightstand, partly because there’s an outlet close enough to plug in the charger, partly because he uses his phone as an alarm clock and this way it’s close enough to reach, and partly because he has a deep-seeded and potentially unhealthy addiction to it. If he wants to check Twitter at 4 o’clock in the morning because he can’t sleep he doesn’t want to have to get out of bed to do so.

 

Whatever the reason, his phone’s proximity to his head is the reason Chris wakes up to the clamor of his phone vibrating against the wooden nightstand in the middle of the night. Chris keeps his phone on silent 99% of the time, but the inordinately loud _buzz buzz_ of a text coming through, and then another, still manages to wake him up. Perhaps because he’s trained himself to react to the sound, or perhaps he just wasn’t sleeping that well to begin with. Or both.

 

Chris rolls over and grabs the phone just as it buzzes again; reminding him of the unread texts and keeping him from falling right back to sleep.

 

He squints at the screen, struggling to focus.

 

**Are you awake?**

**Please don’t be asleep. I’m drunk and need to tell you how much I love you.**

 

Chris is awake now, frowning at the little grey bubble of a message.

 

_Where are you?_

 

 **Outside**.

 

Chris sits up. It’s 2:30 in the morning, somehow both later and earlier than he thought it might be. He should send Darren home. He should tell him to come inside. He should go down there and see if Darren is okay. He should do a million things and not do a million more. But his decision-making when it comes to Darren has never been based on clarity or reason.

 

_I’m awake_

 

His thumb hovers over the _send_ button for a breath, and then another. And yet another. It’s not wholly unlike Darren to just show up at his house at odd hours, even when he’s supposed to be on the opposite side of the country. But the second text - the second message has Chris concerned. And not because he’s drunk and texting. Besides, Chris has never been able to leave Darren alone.

 

_I’m awake and you have a key._

 

Chris presses send and then waits. The house is quiet and the neighborhood is too. Chris can hear the front door closing and then the scrabble of claws against hardwood as Cooper rushes to great their guest. Chris does not get out of bed when he hears slow footsteps coming up the stairs, but he does foolishly run his hand through his hair, as though it makes a difference or matters in the slightest. It doesn’t. His boxers are old and there’s surely a red mark on his cheek from the pillowcase and none of those things affect why Darren is there.

 

“Hey,” Darren says softly as he pushes open Chris’ bedroom door. It’s dark in the house and Chris can really only make out the shadows of him, the familiar shape of his shoulders and tilt of his hips.

 

“How did you get here?”

 

“Uber. Fucking surge pricing.” Darren slumps heavily against the doorframe and Chris turns on the bedside lamp.

 

Darren’s eyes are tired and his clothes are too nice to be his own for just any old Saturday night. Chris doesn’t know where he was or where he came from and he doesn’t care. Darren is there, in his house, _now_. What came before cannot matter as much as what comes next. But Darren’s hair is a mess and his jacket is rumpled around his body; he looks like he’s barely holding himself up and Chris pushes the comforter aside before he really knows what he’s doing. It’s the long way of things with Darren.

 

“Come on,” Chris says.

 

Darren loses his shoes in a step and his coat in the next. He struggles out of his pants and leaves them crumpled next to the chair his shirt manages to land on. There’s hardly any grace in him at all. Darren slides into the bed with a low groan; this close he smells of stale smoke and spilled whiskey. He smells like strangers and strange rooms and winter nights in LA.

 

Chris flicks off the lamp, throwing the room back into cool darkness as Darren settles against the sheets next to him. It should not be this easy, but it always was.

 

“I’m glad you were awake,” Darren mumbles, curving into the shape of Chris’ body.

 

Chris doesn’t tell him that he wasn’t really. “I’m glad you didn’t drive drunk,” he says instead, letting his arm fold around Darren’s shoulders.

 

Darren breath is warm on Chris’ cheek and his limbs have grown so heavy. It would not surprise Chris if he fell asleep between that breath and the next. He wishes he could protect Darren from the things that exhaust him so, from the things that struggle to ruin him. But he can’t. It’s nothing so tangible as a speeding bullet or a rushing train, though sometimes, in the quiet dark of the night, Chris thinks he’d throw himself in front of both of those things for Darren.

 

“I do,” Darren mutters, almost slurring with liquor and sleep.

 

“What?”

 

“Love you. Wanted you to know.”

  
If the words are a song Chris never gets used to hearing them played. He’s spent too many hours, too many years watching Darren get torn apart by cowards to take for granted the few truths he has to offer.

 

Chris holds him a little tighter, buries his nose in Darren’s hair. “I always know.”

 

He sleeps, knowing he can’t say it enough, but that each time is worth something new.


End file.
